View movie

View thumbnails
Run time: 10 min

Stream (help)

Real Media

Play / Download (help)

(7.5 MB)Real Media

Resources

NoneCamp X-Ray Art Installation in Manchester, UK--Woman (2003)

On 10th October 2003, the UHC Art Collective erected a full sized replica of Camp X-Ray in the centre of Manchester UK. The Arts Council funded project is an art installation, or exhibition, which: "challenges our apathy over the prisoners at the US Army's Guantanamo Bay site and investigates experiences of incarceration and sensory deprivation."

The camp is staffed by volunteer "prisoners" and "guards" and runs for 9 days. It runs as far as possible on the same basis as the real camp and photos from the mainstream media were used as guidelines for its construction.

The person who inspired this project is Jai Redman, a Manchester political artist, who lives just across the road from the camp.

The camp also has sound effects: an impressive siren starts up whenever the front gate opens.

Despite working 24 hours a day on the project for the past few days, Jai found a few moments to talk about it. He said the Manchester City Council gave permission to establish the camp after a few initial hiccups related to the sensitivity of the subject matter. The lease for the camp was withdrawn for 24 hours and then reinstated thanks to supportive pressure from councillors.

The camp has been well received by the local population and especially by the family of one of the British prisoners in Guantanamo Bay who live nearby. This was a prime reason for the location of the camp.

"Nine out of ten people are sympathetic to the project," says Redman. However, he has to single-handedly patrol the camp perimeter at night, while everyone else gets some sleep, in order to defend it from local youngsters who want to break into the camp to play "soldiers". The local territorial army, unsurprisingly, have been the most hostile towards the camp.

Redman also says that the camp "guards" almost mutinied after a few days because they could not bear the way they were having to treat the "prisoners". Clearly, a little bit of the hell of the real camp is being experienced by the volunteers staffing the replica camp.

The project has received a good deal of media coverage including a favourable write-up in the national "Guardian" newspaper. It has also appeared in local TV news bulletins.

This clips features an interview with a woman camp "guard" talking about the aims of the project.


This movie is part of the collection: Manchester Antiwar Videoblog

Director: None
Producer: Chris Edwards
Production Company: None
Sponsor: None
Audio/Visual: sound, color
Keywords: Gunatanamo; cuba; camp x-ray; Manchester; art-installation; human rights
Contact Information: chrisedwards2004@yahoo.com

Creative Commons license: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

Individual Files

Be the first to write a review
Downloaded 1,041 timesReviews